Subject: U. S. Health Agency and Japanese Firm To Develop AIDS-Related Cancer Drug 
Date: Published: 6/19/91 (90 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Technology & Medicine:
    U. S. Health Agency and Japanese Firm
    To Develop AIDS-Related Cancer Drug
    ----
    By Marilyn Chase
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    FLORENCE, Italy -- American virologist Robert Gallo said
 the National Institutes of Health signed a pact with a
 Japanese drug company to help develop and test a new drug
 against a fatal AIDS-linked cancer.
    The experimental drug for Kaposi's sarcoma, a skin
 malignancy, was one of several new strategies against
 acquired immune deficiency syndrome outlined here yesterday
 at the Seventh International Conference on AIDS.  Among other
 new approaches are a gene therapy against AIDS and antidotes
 for various enzymes that nourish the virus and help it do its
 damage.
    Separately, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in
 Boston reported here that certain cells of the body permit
 the virus to pass directly through mucus membranes during
 sexual intercourse.  These cells -- called dendritic
 Langerhans cells -- are present in the mouth and genital
 areas, and may help researchers shed new light on the sexual
 transmission of the virus when there are no cuts or abrasions
 to allow entry of the virus.
    Dr. Gallo said the experimental Kaposi's sarcoma drug,
 made by Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co. of Tokyo, is still in
 early animal tests to check for toxic side effects.  However,
 he said he hoped it would soon proceed to human clinical
 tests by his co-workers at the National Cancer Institute.  He
 made his remarks after a spirited demonstration by Italian
 animal-rights advocates protesting the use of animals in
 medical research.
    Daiichi has signed a comprehensive research and
 development agreement with the National Institutes of Health.
 Under terms of such a pact, the company would give a supply
 of its drug, called SP-PG, to the National Cancer Institute,
 a unit of NIH, to use in laboratory, animal and human
 clinical tests.
    An AIDS activist voiced concern about financial profits
 from the pact between the NIH and a for-profit drug company.
    "I don't stand to earn anything," Dr. Gallo bristled.  "As
 to what Daiichi could earn, I don't know.... I'm not an
 economist.  But if it helps {Kaposi's sarcoma} patients,
 that's what I'll get out of it."
    SP-PG, a natural product made by bacteria in soil, has
 reduced the size of Kaposi's sarcoma lesions in mouse
 experiments.  However, Dr. Gallo warned that the company said
 it has production problems making the purified version slated
 for human tests.  He said he hadn't any idea what such a drug
 would cost.
    Gene therapy against AIDS -- long a theoretical
 possibility -- is becoming a more practical pursuit.  Dr. 
 Gallo said a coworker, Juliana Lisziewicz, is working on a
 piece of genetic material that could be inserted into the
 bone marrow cells of infected people.
    Such a maneuver would flood the body with extra copies of
 a virus part called TAR. Excess TAR would stick to and block
 action of a viral protein called TAT that is known to trigger
 reproduction of the AIDS virus.
    This so-called "TAR decoy" tactic is attracting other
 scientists as well, including Eli Gilboa of Memorial
 Sloan-Kettering in New York, who recently published reports
 that extra copies of TAR could make cells in the test tube
 resistant to the virus.
    Other researchers have attempted total bone marrow
 transplant in AIDS -- so far without success.  But Dr. Gallo
 said that targeting a specific piece of genetic material for
 insertion into the bone marrow's stem cells is a more refined
 tool.
    "Doing gene therapy vs. total bone marrow transplant is
 like a precise bullet vs. an atomic bomb that explodes all
 over," he said.
    Technical hurdles are huge, however.  Successfully splicing
 TAR into bone marrow cells so that it manufactures enough TAR
 to protect against the AIDS virus has proven "very difficult
 so far," said Jerome Groopman, an AIDS expert in Boston.
    Dr. Gallo also proposed trying to harness a protein called
 oncostatin as possible weapon against Kaposi's sarcoma, and
 taking aim against an enzyme called ribonucleotide reductase
 as another target for an anti-viral drug against AIDS.  

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